


Intricacies

by goodnicepeople



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, M/M, give kravitz a nice retirement please, references to death but all in the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-15 08:31:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10553274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodnicepeople/pseuds/goodnicepeople
Summary: Stepping back into the world of the living in a more permanent sense had left Kravitz feeling almost scalded. So many interactions and relationships in so many iterations. After so long seeking out others, chasing down, evading trouble. When people weren’t running, what did they want from him?He’s lucky, then, in Taako’s insistent, blunt directness about the nature of their most frequent houseguest. How Taako privately refers to him as “brother” but, upon Magnus’ arrival at their door, is already rolling his eyes and complaining about some broken chair that needs fixing,and stat, bucko.





	

Kravitz hadn’t recalled all this when he was alive. All these rules. Assumes they must have woven, seamlessly, into the tapestry of his half-remembered former life.

Stepping back into the world of the living in a more permanent sense had left Kravitz feeling almost scalded. So many interactions and relationships in so many iterations. The half-polite dance around uncomfortable subjects with people he barely knew. The notion that not every conversation came with a bounty, a goal. After so long seeking out others, chasing down, evading trouble. When people weren’t running, what did they want from him?

_ Nothing _ , he can recall Taako chastising gently, on more than one occasion.  _ You’re handsome and people just wanna talk at you. _

_ About what? _

_ Doesn’t matter when you’re this handsome, my guy. _

Kravitz happily kept the scope of his world small. Thrilled that Taako, too, was content to spend most days with him in the comfort of their home. Insatiable for Kravitz’s attention. Insatiable for other things, too. Taako’s warm, warm hands and teasing words. The garden that springs up around the perimeter of their home. Kravitz lets things grow with time and finds bliss in their privacy, the easiness of their interaction.

And, slowly, the appearance of others, too. Those who Taako chooses to let in. Few and far between - Taako never the trusting sort, Kravitz still fumbling over what feels like the foolish artifice of “how do you do”s and “how are you today”s after a century without them.

He’s lucky, then, in Taako’s insistent, blunt directness about the nature of their most frequent houseguest. How Taako privately refers to him as “brother” but, upon Magnus’ arrival at their door, is already rolling his eyes and complaining about some broken chair that needs fixing,  _ and stat, bucko _ .

The disconcerting web of dos-and-donts are demolished in the light of Magnus’ searing earnestness. Something that had initially struck Kravitz as impossibly false.  _ Is this your garden? Hoooollyyyy look at the height on those sunflowers!  _ Traipsing through life with a thick-skulled, willful sort of joy. Taako laughing as Kravitz asked, is he  _ always _ that way? Taako acting chagrined; barely concealing his fondness.  _ Yes. Always. It’s the worst. _

He is surprised one evening, the two of them left alone at the dinner table while Taako traipsed outside for something “we just absolutely need, hold tight”. The air feels heavy between them in the silence that follows. Kravitz fears there’s something he’s meant to say; something evading him that he doesn’t quite yet understand. It isn’t that they aren’t ever alone - Magnus has made for a knowledgeable and enthusiastic gardening partner, a hobby Taako would not  _ deign _ to, literally and figuratively, stoop to. But it’s his uncharacteristic sullenness that Kravitz cannot parse, doesn’t know if he should address it, or how.

“Y’know when we met…” Magnus says, startling Kravitz so badly he drops his fork.

“Sorry,” he yelps, reflexively. “I mean. Yes?”   
  
“I asked. Uh. I asked a favor. A message.”

Kravitz finds it difficult to meet Magnus’ gaze. So direct and unguarded.

“I recall.”

“So. Uh. When…. ah,” Magnus starts. Visibly steeling himself. Pushing past some barrier that Kravitz previously thought him incapable of even erecting. “When you said it to her -- y’know.  _ Told _ her?” Magnus wrings his hands hard enough for the skin to blanch white. “W-what did Julia look like?”

“Sorry?” Kravitz answers, leaning closer, wondering if he’d misheard.

“I mean. Did she smile?” Magnus looks a bit sick asking it, face contorted like the words are barbs on his tongue. He laughs, a high-pitched piteous little thing, like wringing a sound out of a bird. “What a stupid thing to ask, I know, but I think about it? A lot?”

“Oh.” Kravitz says, for lack of much better to say. He’s not one for subtlety. He didn’t fall into a job of reaping souls and wrangling dead delinquents into submission because of his tact and grace. He clears his throat and redirects as gently as he can, “I didn’t - ”

“You didn’t tell her,” Magnus interjects quickly, nodding his head rapidly, sort of stutteringly. “That’s fine. That’s fine. I - I knew it was probably like. Not  _ allowed _ \--”

“No, no, I told her!” Kravitz grabs Magnus’ wrist with urgency, a little desperately, hoping to stall his stream of thought, but it feels immediately wrong. Locked between too intimate for the relationship they have and a touch too aggressive, so Kravitz lifts both hands like a child caught stealing, palms out, unable to meet Magnus’ eyes.

“Sorry, sorry,” he says. He clears his throat again, louder this time. _ It’s beginning to sound like a sick ward in here _ , he can imagine Taako needling. Triumphant and fond, the way he often is.

“What I mean to say,” he continues, waveringly, “is I passed along your message. But souls in the Astral Plane are. Ah.”

Magnus looks hopeful. Woefully so.

“It’s just their spirit, unless the Raven Queen has summoned a body for you for some sort of purpose. Like Reaping. So Julia was -- ” Magnus has begun to visibly deflate, but his eyes are still fixed on him. Interested, unflinching. “Well. She’s just a spirit. Bright light.”

“So you don’t really see her, huh?”

“Not  _ physically _ , no.”

“Sure,” Magnus says, a little hollowly. And then repeats, “Sure.”

“I know she heard your message.”

“No, no, thank you,” he intones, still more distant than Kravitz can ever recall hearing him. “Thank you so much. You - it really means a lot.”

“Of course.”

“It’s just that. Um.” Magnus twists his hands into the loose fabric of his pants, his voice wavering. “I wish. I mean, I  _ want _ \-- ”

“Magnus, you don’t have to -- ”

“Y’know, she -- there’s no way it didn’t hurt her. When she...” Magnus swipes the back of his hand across his eyes. Stop, Kravitz thinks to say. I know what you want to hear. I know what you want to ask. Magnus so threadbare in front of him, the kind of person who is blinding in their sincerity, their good intent. Swallowing up everything in the furnace of their attention, burning up not just the good, but the painful, confused things, too. The bits and pieces you try hard to keep buried.

“I guess I want to know that she’s all there. Not injured. Or burning.”

He winces as he says the last word. Looking up at the ceiling like it might disguise the tears in his eyes.

“Oh, boy, pretty embarrassing, huh?” Magnus says. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s okay,” Kravitz says, which he finds he means very deeply, despite the trapped, heavy feeling in the room. “It really is okay.”

“Sorry.”

“She’s unharmed. Souls are just -- their bodies are cast off. Her soul is whole. Intact. Her afterlife is free from pain.”

“Good,” Magnus says, his face still upturned, like a plant seeking sunlight. His eyes now closed. Kravitz watches a teardrop splatter onto the wood table between them with a soft  _ tap _ . Neither move at all. Weighed down by something heavy and unignorable. 

“She’s really beautiful,” Magnus says quietly. “I hope you see her someday. Her smile?”

He laughs, maybe. Something that sounds like air is expelled out of him quickly, and hard. The sound of his chair scraped back against the wood floor. “Sorry,” Magnus says quietly. And disappears down the hall.

Taako reappears from the garden with two handfuls of mint leaves, dirt around his bright yellow fingernails. Face falling incrementally away from its mischievous sort of grin, some playful barb dying on his tongue.

“Where the fuck did Maggie go?”

“I’m afraid he’s weeping in our restroom, presently.”

“Hatchi matchi,” Taako wheezes, dropping the leaves into a bowl of water at the sink. “I leave you alone for two minutes to nab some garnish and you wreck my houseguests from the inside out.”

Kravitz blushes. As much as it is that he can, physically, blush.

“Taako, please,” he grumbles, as Taako sticks out his tongue. “I think it’s. A bit serious.”

Taako continues rinsing the mint, but looks over his shoulder with far more genuine gravitas. 

“Okay,” he says, a little flatly. Barely masking nerves.

“He asked about his wife.”

“ _ Okay _ ,” Taako says again, more emphatically. His voice pitched too high, belying any sort of nonchalance. “And you said?”

“He asked what she’d looked like what I saw her. But you know how it is, you don’t  _ see _ the departed, they’re just sort of -- light, and sound.”

“Oh, honey,” Taako clucks, reproachfully. He abandons his task and climbs into Kravitz lap to face him, wet hands settling on the back of his neck. Kravitz winces and swallows a small noise of protest, nevertheless letting Taako take up his desired post.

“Why didn’t you lie?”

Kravtiz must pull some exaggeratedly offended face, because Taako squawks with a sad, fond sort of laughter, and swoops in to kiss his cheek.

“Wh-why would I,” he protests, anemically. Lying has not traditionally been on the table, so to speak. In this bevy of social interaction Kravitz is still taking time to untangle.

“Because you can,” Taako sighs. “Because he’s sad. Because you’re magic and he ‘aint and you can throw the man a bone, sometimes.”

“He’s not a  _ dog _ , Taako,” Kravitz says, “he’s your brother.”

Taako shushes him, though not petulantly. Curling some of Kravitz’s hair around his finger. Leaning in again for another short kiss.

“He’s sad,” Taako repeats. “And whatever time. Whatever time he’s -- ”

Taako stops himself there, his voice cracking and fizzling out. Quickly dipping down to kiss Kravitz’s neck, though perhaps to disguise something that passes over his face. A brief flash of expression Kravitz is too keen to miss.

“Just make’m happy,” Taako drawls against his neck. “We can, so just. Do it.”

“I love you,” Kravitz answers, a bit reflexively. Sort of surprised to have voiced the sudden swell of affection he feels, Taako so warm against him, bright and delightful and unscrupulous and  _ his _ .

“I love you too, bub,” Taako says. “My darling. How did I find you? As handsome as I am and twice as emotionally inept.”

“Taako!”

He trails kisses up Kravitz’s jaw, dragging his lips as he laughs.

“ _ You’re _ the liar,” Kravtiz protests.

“And you don’t know when not to tell the truth.”

Silence settles. Magnus has not returned.

“He said his wife was beautiful,” Kravitz says into the quiet. The sound of it like sand settling, heavy and thick. Taako breathes.

“I’m sure she was,” he replies. “Is.”

“Yes,” Kravitz is quick to agree. “I wish I’d told him.”   
  
“Next time,” Taako assures, gently, climbing out of his lap. “I’m gonna go get Mags. Don’t go anywhere.”

Where would I go, Kravitz thinks. Where would I possibly go, away from you. Taako’s voice, lilting and gentle, down the hall.  _ Maggie, you in there? Want some company?  _ Kravitz isn’t sure how Taako manages it. Everything Taako does is an act; the nonchalance, the choice of words, the drag and drawl and delight. But in that performance, Taako edges closer and closer to truth. Things he might not otherwise be able to say or feel without it. There is such immense love. Such red-hot, immense affection tempered beneath his surface. Emerging gradually, incrementally, as Taako allows.

Kravitz can barely make out Magnus’ gravelly, watery voice uttering reassurances. Taako’s laugh, reverberating off the walls. A home they’ve made, together, against all odds. Kravitz thinks, at least in this moment, he understands things exactly as they are.

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe someday there'll be a follow-up of Taako talking Magnus out of a tiny half-bath restroom decorated with kitschy floral curtains (Kravitz's purchase, naturally.)


End file.
